Chapter 144
Three seconds of silence passed, and Ms. Kim smiled brightly and Clapped her hands.
“Ahaha, I’m joking. Your reaction is amusing. You must be popular.”
“Ah, yes. I hear that often.”
Dragon President and Tony used to say it together in unison.
That I was the type of person who was “fun to tease”. In a word, I guess you could say I’m satisfying to mess with.
I had thought that might be the reason why these bizarre customers were uniquely interested in me and kept striking up conversations.
Seeing it today, it seemed that the hypothesis was correct.
“Hmm… I said it was a joke, but isn’t your reaction still too Cold? If you put on such a straight face, even I would feel sad. It’s not like I said I liked you and asked you out on a date… Hmm. Let’s see. Do you want to go out with me?”
“…”
I almost bit my tongue at the sudden fastball.
I really should have run away.
“To sing my own praises, I have some money. I have buildings and a company under my name. My looks and body are pretty well-proportioned too. On top of that, in bed…”
“As expected! I was wrong. My reaction was too rude. I’m sorry. It’s just that I have a lot to care about right now, so I don’t have the luxury to meet anyone else.”
If I stayed still, I was going to end up hearing about the bedroom techniques and genital specs of a person I was seeing for the first time in my life - someone I didn’t even know was a woman or a man.
Feeling a Sense of Crisis, I urgently recited my excuses and apologies, and Ms. Kim shook her head.
“Ah, it’s Fine. I’m the one who should be sorry. I just poked at you to see, but I guess you’re hetero?”
“Excuse me? Ah, yes.”
“I figured as much. That’s why my fatal charm didn’t work. Of course, they say there’s no tree that won’t fall after ten strikes, and it would be fun to make you realize a new preference… but this isn’t bad either. I need to restrain myself a bit too.”
“Excuse me?”
I couldn’t understand what she had been saying for a while.
To be exact, I could hear it, but my brain was refusing to comprehend it.
As I continued to ask in confusion, Ms. Kim crossed her legs and spoke.
“Because, as I said, I have a fiancé. I’m in a Position where I shouldn’t be looking elsewhere. It’s a shame.”
It seems more like a massive relief than a shame, though.
That was when I was internally spitting out words that I couldn’t say out loud.
“Ah, for reference, you’ve already heard who my fiancée is, right? She is - oh, she’s on the hologram Channel right now. Everyone, look over there. That’s my fiancée. Isn’t she truly beautiful?”
Should I call it Unexpected?
At the sight of Mayoral Candidate El Valentine, who appeared largely on the Political Channel just in time, Ms. Kim put on a rosy expression like a girl in love.
Even her voice was full of freshness and excitement, with her coquettish and wicked Demeanor when throwing sexual jokes at me gone.
This is true love, in a word, is it?
I couldn’t call it a healthy love, but it was at least clear that it was a sincere love.
[The alpha and omega of my pledges is always stability. I will gift you Citizens a stable tomorrow above all else. Robbers, drugs, gangs… it is now goodbye to the Dusk City that wrestles with crime. I will completely rectify the city’s public order. If it is a DCPD that cannot arrive in time when citizens are in danger, we do not need it! I will reform it. Economic Policy is the same. Price and Employment Stability; that is what I can do better than anything else…]
“Look at those beautiful lips, that voice that just slips right into your ears, and those eyes that feel like they could suck you in. How can she dig into a person’s heart like that even from across a screen? If there is a higher power, it has definitely bestowed a tremendous blessing upon her. Don’t you think so?”
“Well, I suppose so.”
Even to my eyes, it seemed clear that she was a blessed human. If being born as a Direct Descendant of the Royal Family of a Megacorp wasn’t a blessing, what was?
It would have been really nice if I hadn’t been dropped into this World with nothing but my bare body, but had instead undergone Possession into the body of a Chaebol’s Youngest Son like “Aaron Valentine”.
That was when I was continuing to listen to the fuss of Ms. Kim, the self-proclaimed fiancée, who was saying that anyone in their right mind would vote for El Valentine unless they were blind.
[Is it because she put forward 'stability' as the core keyword of her pledges like this? Candidate Valentine’s approval rating is certainly showing a stable trend, but not a favorable one. Unlike the explosive upward trend at the beginning of the campaign, it is now rather a slowly decreasing trend.
Experts point to the cause as her safe pledges, which, unlike her unconventional appearance, are not entirely different in the Big Picture from those of previous mayoral candidates. It means that the citizens are gradually feeling disgusted by the Campaign Strategy and propaganda that focus on Candidate El Valentine’s personal popularity.]
“…What did you say?”
I can say for sure. What I felt in that moment was murderous intent.
Ms. Kim’s eyes narrowed thinly. She looked ready to strangle the Host across the hologram Channel to death with just her glare.
[On the other hand, what about the other Leading Candidate, Doi Dexter McMillan? As shown in the graph above, his approval rating has been showing a steep Upward Curve recently. It is still not enough to challenge the stronghold of Candidate El Valentine, but if this trend continues, who knows. What is the secret to this rapid growth? Has there been any change in his policies?]
[Experts say that Candidate McMillan’s new Election Strategy, his pledges based on the logic of a classic Antithesis, has worked well. If Candidate El Valentine brought out the keyword 'stability' to drive a wedge into her solidifying trend, Candidate McMillan set a counterfire by putting out the keyword 'change' as if he had been waiting for it. That suited the citizens' tastes better. Shall we listen to Candidate D.D. McMillan’s speech?]
By that point, the atmosphere was incredibly tense and vicious.
It had sunk so chillingly that the surrounding customers shivered, and even though it wasn’t a cocktail meant to be drunk Cold, the liquor seemed to frost over and turn chilly on its own.
I guarantee you, I was confident I wouldn’t be surprised at all even if Ms. Kim suddenly pulled a gun out from under her skirt and started firing wildly right here.
Ah, of course, I mean a different gun, not the one hanging between her legs.
[What do you mean by the gun hanging between her legs?]
…It means that Customer is just that pissed off. Would she pull a gun out of a place like that unless she was incredibly pissed off?
That was when I gave a rough excuse to the Artificial Intelligence with the Mental Age of a ten-year-old kid, and sent a hand signal to Tony to change the channel to somewhere else for the sake of the Customer’s Mental Health and, above all, the safety of the bar.
Noticing it like a ghost, Ms. Kim turned her white Optic Lens toward me. Her mouth was drawn all the way up, forming a dangerous smile.
“How delicate of you. I appreciate the thought, but it’s Fine. D.D. McMillan… let’s hear what kind of nonsense that pig-like human is spouting from his SHIT-smelling trap.”
At the rough tone that didn’t match her smiling face, I raised both hands to show I understood.
Inside the hologram screen, D.D. McMillan, looking noticeably more tired and rugged than before, was passionately speaking with glaring eyes, having even shaved off his bushy beard.
…Hmm. Does this mean I don’t need to carve a beard when making a McMillan Cocktail anymore?
That’s Welcome news to hear.
[I, Doi Dexter McMillan, as a Citizen just like all of you, Confess that this city is rotten. It’s a self-evident truth without even needing to list the arguments. Everyone was just hushing it up, but Dusk City is heading toward catastrophe.]
[The Citizens are sinking into a swamp of pessimism and despair. Politicians condemn it as a lack of mental fortitude, but my thoughts are different. It is the fault of the city that does not return even a sliver of hope to the Citizens, because what saves people and also kills them is, in the end, always a handful of hope.]
[We do not need grandiose pledges that cannot even be kept. I will present Three Hopes to you, Citizens, the very things that are truly and desperately needed in this city.]
[First is the reform of the Medical System: Dusk’s deep-rooted evils - people who are left to die because they are not subscribed to the service even when their lives are in immediate danger, those who cannot even touch the murderous medical expenses even as their bodies rot from cyberware side effects, the unlicensed Underground Clinics that lure them in to perform illegal procedures…]
[All these things I mention are not rare cases. If you pay just a little Attention, it is a sight you can commonly see on the Street. The city is groaning in pain. Too many people who could be saved if properly treated in time are dying. And that is entirely the fault of the city and the city’s Medical System, which are failing to Fulfill their role in welfare.]
[I will not speak at length. The existing Medical Service Policy will change completely. Anyone with an ID registered in the city Database will be enrolled as a member of this new service completely free of Charge. To ensure no one gives up because it’s too expensive, or is rejected due to a history of disease and illegal modifications, everyone, every Citizen in the entire city, is the target of this expanded insurance I will create. With this policy, I will provide you with a Medical Expense Reduction Benefit from at least thirty percent to a maximum of one hundred percent, regardless of the circumstances.]
[Please remember. The city I Lead will not abandon you.]